Taylor's Pool Hall

Taylor's Pool Hall. . , Built in 1922 as three storefronts, this building housed a variety of small retail businesses including one that drew widespread attention – Taylor's Pool Hall., Prior to the December 1933 repeal of the Prohibition Amendment, the Cullen-Harrison Act was passed by the U.S. Congress. This law allowed the sale of low-alcohol content beer and wine, considered to be non-intoxicating. Charles V. Taylor began selling beer at his establishment on July 27, 1933. Pictured above in a Lancaster Daily Gazette article, Taylor, in the center, is credited as the man who “uncapped a couple of cold ones after getting the first license to sell brew in the fountain-head of prohibition in 60 years.”, Reverend Howard Hyde Russell, founder of the Anti-Saloon League, and Otterbein Professor Raymond Mendenhall, chair of a group calling itself the Westerville Law Enforcement Committee, pleaded with Taylor to abandon sale of the beverage. A newspaper headline proclaimed, “Public uprising looms to bar sale of beer in arid capital.” On November 7, 1933, citizens went to the polls and voted 1,063 to 400 to ban alcohol from the village again.